This outcome is absolutely the Democrats' fault for failing to learn. Their job is to win elections, not be righteous about how they should have won if the voters weren't such idiots.
Let me count the ways:
1) Coastal-big-city Democrats purged the party of Southern and Midwestern Blue Dogs over the past 25 years because they could not stand ideological compromise or party diversity on various issues that are required to win in those states, like gun control, the national debt, or voter IDs for example. Previously competitive states were defunded, dismissed, and given up on, like Ohio, Florida, and Iowa. Money and policy were focused on primary races in coastal cities. The "blue wall" has steadily crumbled this century until by 2024 California and *parts of* New England were all that was left. As a result, Democrats have only won the presidency in the 21st century when a crisis was occurring at the same time as voting was occurring, like a global financial crisis or pandemic. Things have to be going very, very badly for Dems to squeak through the presidency.
2) Defensive excuses about gerrymandering or judge nominations only serve as covers for the fact that Democrats are not competitive in most states, and lack the lower-level team to block anti-democratic changes and nominees. In many states, Republicans walk unchallenged into state legislatures, mayor races, and judge positions. Most of the country is ruled by one party - the Republicans - because they adapted themselves to the electorate while Dems failed to change with the times. The gerrymanders and voter purges are happening because the opposition is not strong enough. A true national party has the ideological flexibility and leadership development pipeline to compete everywhere. Democrats are a regional / coastal party.
3) Democrats are so coastal-city oriented now that they can only nominate lawyers from California, New England, or Chicago like Kerry, Biden, and now Harris. It is simply not possible for the modern party to nominate a Southern governor like Clinton or Carter. You can safely bet it will be another large-city lawyer running against J.D. Vance in 2028. They will lose too, unless there is an absolute crisis going on.
4) Democrats effectively turned down support from business people to chase votes from labor unions, which have steadily shrunk over the years and now represent less than 11% of workers. The gambit didn't pay off, as most union members now vote for Republicans, while Republicans have simultaneously bought the business community's support with tax breaks. Thus Democrats ended up with votes and donations from neither side. Unions served as a mental handle for blue-collar votes because most coastal-lawyer Democrats were unfamiliar with actual blue-collar people, and assumed they would simply vote as a bloc. When people talk elitist paternalism, look at this example.
5) Democrats failed to raise the alarm about conservative control of media, even as traditional journalism died, Fox News became the most popular network, and social media like YouTube and X became mainstreamed as sources of political information. Even as these conservative-biased platforms demoted progressive ideas while promoting conservative conspiracy theories, Democrats continued to pretend their message would be heard simply because they were CORRECT. Democrats even failed to confront conservative claims about "the liberal media" with facts about who owns it and how it is biased. As a result, most people now think "the media" has a liberal bias when in fact the opposite is true. Somehow this issue is STILL not on Democrats' radar, and we can expect it will continue to be hand-waved away. It's sad to watch Democrats grovel for air time on Fox News and X.
6) Another issue not on Democrats' radar is the unfairness of our criminal justice system. Billionaires like Trump with infinite money to spend on lawyers can literally get away with sedition, rape, and fraud, while the poor have to plea bargain for crimes they didn't commit because there is no money for public defenders. You know what Black and Latino voters are concerned about? The fact that they are routinely rounded up and sent to prison without fair trials. How have Dems been so incompetent not to draw a contrast between Trump's endless trials and the relatively sudden plea deals that demolish poorer families over things like smoking weed. Perhaps criticizing the criminal justice system seems like a bad look for a Democratic party dominated by lawyers, but all this idle talk about social justice ideals falls flat if you're not doing something about the main issue. Shockingly, Black and Latino voters did not turn out the vote for a prosecutor. Racists usually just talk shit on the internet, but the criminal justice system destroys their families every day. Which is more dangerous?
7) The whole "it's not our fault voters don't vote for us" attitude is exhibit A for the case that Democrats have become unable to learn from their mistakes or change into a nationally competitive party. It also seems like a strange thing to say if you are concerned about a fascist takeover of the United States. What level of navel gazing insularity does it take to believe these two things at once, instead of immediately looking for pragmatic solutions to an emergency? What level of ideological rigidity does it take to refuse to change in the face of two losses to a candidate as flawed as Trump? I swear if the house was on fire, Democrats would refuse to escape because the house shouldn't be on fire and it's someone else's fault it is on fire.
8) Harris ran the same positivity campaign that failed for Clinton in 2016, while Trump ran the same "everything is awful" campaign that worked for him in 2016. If you're suprised all this cheerleading didn't motivate voters, maybe consider that the last thing people with deep economic dissatisfaction want to hear is that everything is wonderful. "Oh, in that case I suppose it's my fault I can't afford a home, can't go to college without financially crippling myself for life, and have seen my cost of living go up over 20% during the Biden administration. What a charming narrative by the Democrats!" Yes, Harris was technically correct. Unemployment is low, inflation has been fixed, GDP growth is soaring, and Democrat supported bills are contributing mightily to economic growth. But it's utterly tone deaf to throw statistics at a middle class that is in steep decline. Imagine if Harris had (1) loudly and confidently acknowledged things had gotten worse for the middle class and poor, (2) explained the changes as a result of years of Republican policies, and (3) propose fresh solutions that we haven't been hearing for the last two decades. That is how you win elections, not by minimizing people's economic concerns and pretending there isn't a beggar at every intersection in America these days.
At this point I've lost any faith in Democrats' ability to learn or change. They will continue with the same rigid ideological formulas until democracy dies, which may have occurred already. If watching Trump win again - and probably a Republican sweep of Congress - hasn't motivated them to change, I don't know what will.
A shakeup is desperately needed, but there seems to be nobody left over from the purges that could lead such a charge and reshape the party into something new and effective. And every time I talk to a Democrat about these concerns, all I hear are more excuses and the occasional virtue signal. The lack of pragmatism is damning. The denial is so strong.
